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STANTON Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, is a major recipient of government grants for scientific research. He received more than $4 million from the state of California over the period 1989 to 1993 for his research on tobacco. But his research had nothing to do with the medical effects of tobacco use; it involved “tracking the political activities” of tobacco companies in that state. He was eventually defunded by the state legislature when it learned that the money had gone not for genuine medical research, but to “the kind of thing we [politicians] do to each other when we rim for election,” as State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown put it.

When Glantz’s grant from the state of California was terminated he tapped into an even bigger revenue source—the Federal Government. According to material I received under the Freedom of Information Act, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded Glantz $223,214 in 1994, the first installment of a threeyear grant. According to the grant proposal, “the purpose of the project is to determine the extent and nature of tobacco-industry influence on state tobacco policy making.”

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Thomas DiLorenzo

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STANTON Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, is a major recipient of government grants for scientific research. He received more than $4 million from the state of California over the period 1989 to 1993 for his research on tobacco. But his research had nothing to do with the medical effects of tobacco use; it involved “tracking the political activities” of tobacco companies in that state. He was eventually defunded by the state legislature when it learned that the money had gone not for genuine medical research, but to “the kind of thing we [politicians] do to each other when we rim for election,” as State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown put it.

When Glantz’s grant from the state of California was terminated he tapped into an even bigger revenue source—the Federal Government. According to material I received under the Freedom of Information Act, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded Glantz $223,214 in 1994, the first installment of a threeyear grant. According to the grant proposal, “the purpose of the project is to determine the extent and nature of tobacco-industry influence on state tobacco policy making.”